Claudius Conrad

Claudius Conrad (Munich, ca. 1978 - ) MD, PhD, (Senior Surgical Resident, Massachusetts General Hospital; Harvard Medical School, Boston, Massachusetts) is a surgeon who studies how music is helpful to patients (specially of Mozart’s music). He has played the piano seriously since he was 5.

We demonstrated that, compared to controls, music significantly reduced the amount of sedative drugs needed to achieve comparable levels of sedation. Simultaneously, among those receiving the music intervention, plasma concentrations of growth hormone rose, whereas those of interleukin-6 and epinephrine fell. The reduction in systemic stress hormone levels was associated with a significantly lower blood pressure and heart rate. Based on these findings, we developed a model of how music might act on neurologic, hormonal, and humoral levels to effect this relaxation. From The Medscape Journal of Medicine.

Claudius Conrad: In a paper published last December in the journal Critical Care Medicine, he and colleagues revealed an unexpected element in distressed patients’ physiological response to music: a jump in pituitary growth hormone, which is known to be crucial in healing. “It’s a sort of quickening,” he said, “that produces a calming effect.” Accelerando produces tranquillo.[1] The New York Times.